JTVA News!
Hello all,
Yesterday was the first JTVA board meeting since the inaugural competition on June 21st. Everyone was thrilled with the quality of the singers and their wonderful performances. There was a shared feeling of tremendous success of the entire weekend. If there was a disappointment about anything, however, it was that each singer did not receive something. We recognize that you all made significant commitments of time and effort to travel to Oakland and participate. To effect a positive change in that regard, the board of directors made two important policy decisions that I'd like to share with you:
To establish Encouragement Awards to the four Finalists in each tier who do not win 1st, 2nd or 3rd place awards in the JTVA Vocal Competition. Award amounts would be $500 to the four Tier I Finalists and $300 to the four Tier II Finalists.
To implement the Encouragement Awards retroactively to the inaugural JTVA Vocal Competition Finalists.
With that, I'm delighted to let you know that the eight finalists who did not receive 1st, 2nd or 3rd prize this past June will be receiving a check in the near future. As I know some of you are moving and/or traveling, please let me know by return email where I should mail your check.
I would also like to announce that our second annual competition will be held next year on June 26 & 27, again at Holy Names University. We anticipate applications will be accepted on YAP Tracker beginning about September 21. I hope you will encourage all your singer friends and colleagues to apply! They can visit the JTVA website (which will be updated and revised in the next few weeks) for details about the second competition. If you have comments you might like to share about your time at the inaugural JTVA Vocal Competition, we would love to post them on the JTVA website. It would be terrific to include your thoughts about your experiences while you were here.
Videos of some of your performances have been posted on Vimeo. Our generous and talented volunteer videographer, Mark Wilhelm, is doing an outstanding job as he works through each singer’s performances. Here is a link that will take you to the video of Nicole Greenidge’s performances but where you will also find the seven videos completed so far ~ http://vimeo.com/99590384. All Finalists’ videos will be completed as Mark is able to get to them, so please stay tuned.
I hope you are all doing well. I would welcome hearing from you and learn how your singing career is developing. It was such a pleasure listening to each of you sing and I send you all my best wishes!
Sincerely,
James Toland